Stories from a Chela – Spiritual Nourishment for All
H.E. Tsem Rinpoche has been providing much needed spiritual nourishment for people all over the world through his blog and other online platforms like YouTube. In fact it was through the blog and YouTube that I first came across Tsem Rinpoche’s teachings.
A ‘chela’ is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘student’. In particular this word refers to the student of a spiritual teacher. Within this series of short posts, I will be sharing stories about His Eminence the 25th Tsem Rinpoche. Hopefully through these stories, you will get a glimpse of how Tsem Rinpoche and the Dharma that Rinpoche shares has not only benefited me but countless others.
Spiritual Nourishment for All
In my eyes, Tsem Rinpoche is truly unique. His drive to provide spiritual nourishment and encouragement to all transcends forms of cultural barriers and social norms. All Rinpoche wants is for people to benefit from continuing their spiritual journey, becoming kinder people, creating a better life for themselves and reaching higher states of consciousness. This may sound cliché as it is what any real Buddhist should be aiming for, but my experiences have shown me that Rinpoche is the real deal.
One of the ways that Rinpoche does this is by providing the Dharma for free on this blog, from articles on spiritual masters; prayers and sadhanas; articles on transformation of the mind; and even free high resolution images for download for personal practice. Let’s talk a little about the last of these.
Rinpoche has commissioned a whole series of thangkas or paintings of various enlightened beings from a group of Nepali artists, working from both Nepal and at times in Malaysia. Rinpoche’s reasoning? Simple, Rinpoche wants people to have as many resources as possible available easily. So these thangkas, once painted are scanned and uploaded as high resolution files, easily downloadable at the click of a button.
Rinpoche has always said that every individual is unique, their likes and dislikes are distinctive, and so is their attraction to or affinity with the Buddhas. In order to bring people to the path of spiritual evolution, the enlightened beings have manifested in many different forms to suit the temperaments and karmic needs of people. That is the reason that Tsem Rinpoche has commissioned so many thangkas of a variety of different deities. Since people have different affinities, shouldn’t they also be given the opportunity to practice the Dharma by having beautiful and iconographically correct images of the enlightened beings they are attracted to? This is Rinpoche’s wish and Rinpoche has been making it a reality.
But this deep yearning that Rinpoche has to benefit people spiritually transcends just Buddhism, it extends to whatever religion the person is practising. Rinpoche is constantly encouraging people of other faiths to practice their own religion stronger, and transform themselves to however their faith encourages them to do so in a compassionate and kind way. Rinpoche believes that at the core of each religion, the key is compassion, kindness and transformation. Due to that, Rinpoche has even had images of various Hindu deities painted and made available for free on this blog as well.
My first Buddhist altar. I downloaded and printed out the images of the Buddhas from this blog. They are some of my favourite.
Some of you may wonder why this is important to me. And the answer is, when I was living in the UK and started practising Buddhism, I did not have the means to purchase statues. I was gifted a Green Tara statue by a friend, which I treasured and which my mum now keeps on her own altar, but apart from that I only had small tsa-tsas and little Thai-style Buddha figurines. The main images I had on my altar were printed out and framed.
And guess where I found these images? Right here on this blog, thanks to Rinpoche’s wish of having the images available exactly for this purpose. Without these holy images which I kept on my altar, I dare say that I would not have generated any amount of merit through which I have come to live in Kechara Forest Retreat and to be a part of Rinpoche’s wish to benefit others.
For more interesting information:
- Stories from a Chela – The Lama that Builds
- Stories from a Chela – The Teaching in the Tea
- Stories from a Chela – Incense Offering That Saves Lives
- Stories from a Chela – Supernatural Protection
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If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team
Thank you Pastor for sharing this interesting story of Rinpoche with us. Rinpoche been compassion knew its hard for us to have images of Buddha , hence Rinpoche has come out with many beautiful images of various enlightened beings for us to be printed and enable us to put on our altar or home.
Many has benefited through all these amazing and fabulous print out. May Rinpoche stays healthy to continue turning the dharma wheel for the benefits of all sentient beings.
Thank you for sharing your story of Rinpoche with us. Rinpoche is always kind and generous in wishing people to benefit from the Dharma. As such, Rinpoche always dedicate his time and thoughts towards new ways to help people on their spiritual path. Many has received the blessings through downloads of the thangkas and prayers made. May we always be blessed with Rinpoche’s good health and long life to continue turning the Wheel of Dharma for the benefit of many sentient beings.
Thank you Rinpoche. Having these beautiful thangkas available for free will surely benefit a lot more people as it is everybody’s birth right to invoke the powers from the divine irrespective of faith and form; be it Hindu or Buddhist deities. As reiterated by Rinpoche many times: “the core of each religion, the key is compassion, kindness and transformation.”